The WC story

About a week after the finish, team captain Björn Rydvall release the story from this years World Championships.

Sunday 3rd October the start gun was fired in Avila, Spain, for the 8th World Adventure Racing Championship. This years’ championship had a record field of 57 four person teams from 30 different countries. Swedish teams were Silva Gerber Adventure, Sweco Karlstad Multisport and Thule Adventure where Martin Flinta competed with 3 Finnish teammates.

Silva Gerber with Aaron Prince, Björn Rydvall, Josefina Wikberg and Robert Lindberg had been preparing for many months. Preparations were going well until some last minute stress with bikes going missing on the flight over and a general strike in Spain just days before the race. By the start though everything was in order for the first stage, 30 minutes of orienteering inside the historic walls around Avila city centre.


Photo: Fiona McBryde. The bronze team. Bronslaget. Aaron, Robert, Björn and Josefina.

We finished this first half hour stage amongst the leaders and set off on the remaining 700 km and 20 000 vertical meters of mountainbiking, kayaking, rope works, and trekking. 5 days with only 4 hours obligatory rest for the winning team.

After the Avila Orienteering sprint we headed out on the first long mountainbike stage, where the large leading pack successively diminished until we were one of only four teams left, together with Blackwater (NIKE, USA/New Zealand), BUFF (Spain/France) and Outdry (France/New Zealand). This was followed by a score style orienteering section, first 12km as a full team, followed by 6 km as two pairs. To our bemusement or amusement all of the lead teams opted to follow Blackwater like sheep on this section, relying on the skills of Chris Forne who is one o the world’s best orienteers. However Chris (fortunately for us) chose a worse route, so we were able to finish the section and head out onto the next mountainbike section with a 15 minute lead.

It’s not every day one gets to lead the world champs, so we tried to keep calm while maintaining a good pace. After some heavy rain which was cold and hard on the bikes, in the middle of the first night we hit transition to a combined kayak / trekking still in the lead along with pre race favorites Team Blackwater (USA/NZ).

Over several more 4-6 hour trekking, biking and inlines stages we were still in the lead after 30 hours of non-stop racing, now sharing the lead with local hope BUFF (Spain/France). As we headed into the longest mountain trek / ropeworks section of the race together BUFF made a decisive break. We kept good pace during this section and even snuck in a one hour sleep, however Buff completed the section 3 hours quicker than all other teams. This was a bold tactic on their part as they opted to take no rest whatsoever for the first 48 hours of the race and go hard until they reached a transition near the half way point of the race where all teams had to stop at least 4 hours. So now we were 3 hours behind in second place, but we had an extra 1 hours sleep in our bodies, it would remain to be seen if BUFF could keep up their pace. During the 4 hour stop most teams managed 2 ½ hours sleep, the remaining time being used to eat, rub in cream, tape feet and repack gear for the remaining half of the race.


Photo: ARWC 2010. An early morning with a beatuiful view.

The remaining half of the course involved again ropeworks, kayaking, trekking and mountainbiking. The second long trek was spectacular where we were in some very steep terrain all night. This was another decisive section where the first three teams, after racing the first half of the course with a pack of teams close behind, managed to make a gap on these chasing teams during this very demanding section. We were treated to some spectacular wildlife out on the course, including amazing mountain goats, huge flocks of vulture like eagles and hundreds of fish rising to catch flies during the kayak sections.

After this second long trek BUFF had 2 hours on Blackwater who had 2 hours on us, and this standing was to remain largely unchanged all the way to the finish. During the final 12 hour kayak section to Salamanca, we were caught by a dark zone. A dark zone is where progression by kayak is prohibited a night, due to the danger of currents and overhanging branches in the river. We were prepared for this however so we set up tent and ate our freeze dried meals, a real luxury to have time to enjoy after 5 days of intense racing with only 5 ½ hours sleep. Buff came to the finish about the time we were forced to stop, amazingly managing to complete the entire 5 day course on their 2 ½ sleep at the mid point plus a few 10 min scraps here and there. They were followed 2 hours later by Blackwater.

The following morning we enjoyed the last 2 hours of kayaking and final city orienteering stage into the finish in historic Salamanca, and our third World Championship bronze medal! However this time we were seriously in the race for gold, so who knows what will happen next year…